Mouse Trap

October 8, 2009

Remember that game called “Mouse Trap” that we also used to play when we were kids and it was so cute and fun? Well, it’s not easy to catch/ kill a mouse. This morning I woke up early to talk to Matt and heard something in my room. I located and crushed a giant cockroach and that thought that was the end of it because it was still dark in my room. As the morning light creeped in I saw that there was sand all over my room. Mounds of it. Not good. I heard the scurrying again and was terrified I was going to see a giant Africa rat, which is the size of a small dog. At this point Matt and I have hung up and I’m furiously text messaging him while I crouch on my bed wrapped in my mosquito net for protection. Yes, obviously my mosquito net is no protection, but Africa rats are scary. I use my upukay (fan) to move the curtain that covers my door and I find a very small mouse. Gross. And how did this tiny mouse dig up all this sand? The sand is literally everywhere. Now Matt is texting me things like “just hit it with a magazine” and “drown it,” great, thanks. I don’t want to potentially ruin my Elle magazine with mouse guts so I use my upukay to nudge my Wolof dictionary toward my bed. When I see the mouse again I attempt to pounce from my bed, through my mosquito net, to squash the mouse with the Wolof dictionary. Fail. Damn.

Now that I’m out of bed I bravely move to and open the door and find my younger sister staring at me. I tell her there’s a mouse in my room. She proceeds to scream this information to my mom in another room and then push some of the dirt back over the hole and calls it a day. Not cool. I tell everyone I want to kill the mouse and they pretty much shrug me off. When I came back home for lunch my dad asked me what I was going to do about the mouse. Awesome, thanks dad. Although, I probably would have received a fairly similar answer from my dad back at home… I did purchase some rat poison from a very quizzical boutique owner who thought I was fairly crazy and now have a poison water bowl in my room. I hope it works, but I have very little faith in my mouse killing skills/ the unmarked, miscellaneous supposed poison tablets I bought at the boutique. It did entertain everyone in language class so that was a plus and I did reward myself with a bean sandwich for my valiant effort.

In other OMG I’m in Africa news, Tamar and I told our teacher about our swear-in outfits that will surely be encrusted in fake jewels and she immediately burst out laughing and told us we would look ridiculous. Can I actually look more ridiculous than I usually do? Obviously I can. She was very adamant that we attempt to rectify the situation. She agreed to called Tamar’s mom and explain that our ceremony is very conservative and we need traditional, African clothes, not blinged out monstrosities. I just got a text from Tamar and I think we’re cool, but we’ll see on Monday.

I’m writing this at lunch because we’re going to the cyber after class so there very well could be more ridiculousness this afternoon, but I’m hoping just to sweat under our tree and read and maybe claim victory over a dead mouse.

I hope everything is good at home.5 more nights in the vil!